Kay Hagan qualifies as a 'post turtle'

By ROBERT DANOSA Free Exchange

Published: Wednesday, August 20, 2014 at 4:30 a.m.

Last Modified: Tuesday, August 19, 2014 at 4:28 p.m.

Cajun language and culture are rich for many reasons that I talked about in my January column. One of them is that the sense of humor and friendliness of Cajuns are such that even insults are delivered with a twinkle in the eye.

By far my favorite Cajun insult I learned from my grandparents is to refer to someone as a “couillon” (pronounced: coo-yaw, with the accent on the second syllable). Couillon is one of those great Cajun words that can mean many different things depending on the context, who you are referring to, and whether or not you are smiling when it’s delivered.

It can be as mild as a friendly version of “dummy” or “acting crazy” or as insulting as “fool” or “imbecile” with many colorful ranges in between. (This is only true in Cajun French; the translations of the word in standard French are not appropriate to print.)

My father, uncles and grandfather liked to use couillon in regard to politicians who were incompetent or who were just plain embarrassing themselves.

Once a politician becomes known as a couillon in Cajun County, his or her days in office are numbered because at that point he or she has just become the newest name to insert into the classic Cajun political joke about the post turtle. I’ll tell it here using our current president as the target, but feel free to insert your own favorite couillon politician.

One afternoon, a father and son were talking by the side of the bayou, and eventually the topic got around to Barack Obama. The father said, “Well, son, Obama is a post turtle.” Not being familiar with the term, the boy asked him what a post turtle was. The father said, “When you come across a fence post with a turtle balanced on top, that’s a post turtle.”

The father saw the puzzled look still on his son’s face, so he explained with a grin, “You know he didn’t get up there by himself, you know he doesn’t know what to do while he’s up there, and you just want to help the poor thing get back down!”

Sen. Kay Hagan is the reason that these images are on my mind. Hagan fits the definition of a post turtle perfectly.

Until 2008, Kay Hagan was a mediocre state senator in Raleigh. She was not even on the leadership track within the Democratic Senate caucus despite serving there for 10 years. And during her first run for U.S. Senate, she didn’t run a single ad touting any major legislative achievement.

The simple truth is that in 2007, no one on either side of the aisle foresaw the collapse of Sen. Elizabeth Dole’s poll numbers (which occurred after the filing deadline) and as a result none of the big dogs in the Democratic Party wanted to run. Mike Easley, Bev Perdue and Roy Cooper all passed on what was seen as a dead-end race, paving the way for Hagan to become our senator.

That is how this particular turtle got up on the post.

Hagan’s time in the U.S. Senate has been as ineffective as her time in Raleigh. She has not introduced a single piece of legislation that has become law. Zero. She has earned the dubious honor of joining John Edwards as the only other senator from North Carolina in the past 40 years to have failed to introduce a single bill that was signed into law.

That’s what a turtle does when it’s stuck up on a post.

But that is not the only reason Hagan’s approval numbers have been stuck below 45 percent in the Real Clear Politics survey of polls. It is also because she was the 51st vote for Obamacare, which a majority of North Carolina voters still want repealed. And it’s because she is on camera 24 times telling voters the now infamous “If you like your plan, you can keep it” Politifact “Lie of the Year.”

Her first ad of the campaign was an attack on Thom Tillis regarding Obamacare that was so blatantly dishonest that she earned another smackdown from Politifact with a ruling of “mostly false,” and we haven’t heard the ad since.

Next, her allies in a super PAC made the laughable mistake of trying to pin the coal ash problem on Speaker Tillis. Oops. It turns out that Hagan voted in both 2006 and 2007 to allow for the disposal of hazardous coal ash in unlined landfills. Even the left-leaning Charlotte Observer editorial board pointed out that she has done nothing to push “the giant utility that helps fund her campaign” toward any cleanup solutions.

That is an embarrassing politician. That is a couillon.

Unfortunately, Harry Reid desperately needs a Hagan win to keep his Senate majority. As a result, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) announced that it has just purchased $9.1 million in ad space to try to convince you that Tillis eats kittens for breakfast.

Yes, $9.1 million. That is 30 percent of what the DSCC has available to spend on every Senate race in the nation this year. That is what panic looks like.

Is it enough to save her? Possibly. Only time will tell. But I predict and hope, for the sake of North Carolina and for Sen. Hagan herself, that in November the voters are going to help this poor turtle get off the post.

Robert Danos is a Hendersonville resident and former spokesman for the 11th District NCGOP. Reach him at robertdanos@outlook.com.

<p>Cajun language and culture are rich for many reasons that I talked about in my January column. One of them is that the sense of humor and friendliness of Cajuns are such that even insults are delivered with a twinkle in the eye.</p><p>By far my favorite Cajun insult I learned from my grandparents is to refer to someone as a “couillon” (pronounced: coo-yaw, with the accent on the second syllable). Couillon is one of those great Cajun words that can mean many different things depending on the context, who you are referring to, and whether or not you are smiling when it's delivered.</p><p>It can be as mild as a friendly version of “dummy” or “acting crazy” or as insulting as “fool” or “imbecile” with many colorful ranges in between. (This is only true in Cajun French; the translations of the word in standard French are not appropriate to print.)</p><p>My father, uncles and grandfather liked to use couillon in regard to politicians who were incompetent or who were just plain embarrassing themselves.</p><p>Once a politician becomes known as a couillon in Cajun County, his or her days in office are numbered because at that point he or she has just become the newest name to insert into the classic Cajun political joke about the post turtle. I'll tell it here using our current president as the target, but feel free to insert your own favorite couillon politician.</p><p>One afternoon, a father and son were talking by the side of the bayou, and eventually the topic got around to Barack Obama. The father said, “Well, son, Obama is a post turtle.” Not being familiar with the term, the boy asked him what a post turtle was. The father said, “When you come across a fence post with a turtle balanced on top, that's a post turtle.”</p><p>The father saw the puzzled look still on his son's face, so he explained with a grin, “You know he didn't get up there by himself, you know he doesn't know what to do while he's up there, and you just want to help the poor thing get back down!”</p><p>Sen. Kay Hagan is the reason that these images are on my mind. Hagan fits the definition of a post turtle perfectly.</p><p>Until 2008, Kay Hagan was a mediocre state senator in Raleigh. She was not even on the leadership track within the Democratic Senate caucus despite serving there for 10 years. And during her first run for U.S. Senate, she didn't run a single ad touting any major legislative achievement.</p><p>The simple truth is that in 2007, no one on either side of the aisle foresaw the collapse of Sen. Elizabeth Dole's poll numbers (which occurred after the filing deadline) and as a result none of the big dogs in the Democratic Party wanted to run. Mike Easley, Bev Perdue and Roy Cooper all passed on what was seen as a dead-end race, paving the way for Hagan to become our senator.</p><p>That is how this particular turtle got up on the post.</p><p>Hagan's time in the U.S. Senate has been as ineffective as her time in Raleigh. She has not introduced a single piece of legislation that has become law. Zero. She has earned the dubious honor of joining John Edwards as the only other senator from North Carolina in the past 40 years to have failed to introduce a single bill that was signed into law.</p><p>That's what a turtle does when it's stuck up on a post.</p><p>But that is not the only reason Hagan's approval numbers have been stuck below 45 percent in the Real Clear Politics survey of polls. It is also because she was the 51st vote for Obamacare, which a majority of North Carolina voters still want repealed. And it's because she is on camera 24 times telling voters the now infamous “If you like your plan, you can keep it” Politifact “Lie of the Year.”</p><p>Her first ad of the campaign was an attack on Thom Tillis regarding Obamacare that was so blatantly dishonest that she earned another smackdown from Politifact with a ruling of “mostly false,” and we haven't heard the ad since.</p><p>Next, her allies in a super PAC made the laughable mistake of trying to pin the coal ash problem on Speaker Tillis. Oops. It turns out that Hagan voted in both 2006 and 2007 to allow for the disposal of hazardous coal ash in unlined landfills. Even the left-leaning Charlotte Observer editorial board pointed out that she has done nothing to push “the giant utility that helps fund her campaign” toward any cleanup solutions.</p><p>That is an embarrassing politician. That is a couillon.</p><p>Unfortunately, Harry Reid desperately needs a Hagan win to keep his Senate majority. As a result, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) announced that it has just purchased $9.1 million in ad space to try to convince you that Tillis eats kittens for breakfast.</p><p>Yes, $9.1 million. That is 30 percent of what the DSCC has available to spend on every Senate race in the nation this year. That is what panic looks like.</p><p>Is it enough to save her? Possibly. Only time will tell. But I predict and hope, for the sake of North Carolina and for Sen. Hagan herself, that in November the voters are going to help this poor turtle get off the post.</p><p><b>Robert Danos is a Hendersonville resident and former spokesman for the 11th District NCGOP. Reach him at robertdanos@outlook.com.</p>